Yes, Donuel, I know...but I just can't avoid talking about history. I love it. ;-)

josepp - You are correct that one man failed to pass along a message from the radar station about a large incoming group of unidentified aircraft. That was because he assumed that they were a group of (unarmed) American B-17s coming in from California. On the one hand, it was not too surprising an error...on the other hand, he should have checked into it more carefully before making a snap judgement!!!

A Japanese midget sub was spotted in restricted waters very near the harbour awhile before the attack too, and it was sunk by an American picket destroyer! Yet no one followed that up by issuing a general alert.

These were cases of considerable carelessness.

I have plenty of sympathy for all the people who died (or were injured) on both sides at Pearl Harbour and after Pearl Harbour. They were all doing the job they'd been trained to do and doing the very best they could, but they were among the millions of victims of power politics who have fallen in war. They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sort of like the Japanese at this moment, after the earthquake.